He is a former director of the West Midlands Enterprise Board and chaired the West Midlands Co-op Finance Company and the Black Country Co-op Development Agency. He was previously a member of the Labour Party's Plant Committee on electoral reform.
Member of the subsequently abolished West Midlands County Council 1981-86.
He was first elected an MEP in June 1989. He became leader of the EPLP in 2002.
In January 2004 he was sent a letter bomb which was opened by a member of his staff (his wife) which immediately started to smoke and then caught fire, however no one was injured.